I had a tower trailer project about a year ago, that went awry when the
trailer was impounded for beiing parked on an ex Kmart store abandoned
parking lot, that was in interim status, and turned hot project while I was
far away working in the field at Cell sites. Anyway, by the time I heard
about the i impound, the storage/tow bill was to high for my soured psyche
for me to buy my tower back from the Tow yard. The tower may still be in
impound in a yard in Moss Landing on the Monterey Bay.
It was a Tri-EX commercial light support, large size. Had a beautiful TRiex
tower, motorized 60 footer, and a Ham 4 like rotor. There were a lot of
problems requiring attention, and money to make the tower usable and safe to
transport. I put up pictures which you can view at:
http://groups.msn.com/towertrailers
Design fault number one, was the very high mount of the 900 lbs of tower,
about 8 ft off the grouund. That, combined with zero tongue weight, and my
lack of knowledge of towing trailers, and a Pintle hook tow connection, came
close to killing me and a fellow ham who had a WWII jeep with Pintle hook
tow fixture. We towed it on back roads from Prunedale to Monterey, slowly
and carefully. However, as someone else recounted, the tower was triggered
into an oscillation movement that for a while just got bigger and bigger.
The genuine WWII jeep, a collector's piece, was authentic, without roll
bars, or seatbelts, probably weighed about 1500 lbs, about 2/3rd the weight
of the tower trailer. Something set the trailer into oscillation while
travelling about 40mph.
Within about 3 seconds, the trailer, with the 900 lb tower at 7 ft above
gnd, was yanking the jeep's rear end back and forth, probably 3 ft at a
time, left,then right..etc. I envisioned the coming flip of the entire
system, Jeep, Tower and Us, was immenent. The Pintle hook would not unlatch
so when tower trailer would have tipped it would have flipped the jeep and
us, too...In 20 years of skydiving I was not as scared for my life as I was
then....Fortunately the oscillation stopped, and we were able to get to our
destination unscathed, but scared sh....less
Read up a lot on trailer towing safe practices, many of which were broken in
our instance:
eg: zero tongue weight, short wheelbase, lightweight tow vehicle, ordinary
auto tires (not trailer tires) , Single axle, heavy tower trailer with very
high CG.
A lot of detailed pictures of the tower trailer are located at:
http://groups.msn.com/towertrailers
Some observations about what I learned about the tower and needed repairs:
1. Overweight for California for single axle no brakes
2. 800 lbs at 7 ft high very dicey on a 5 ft wide tower trailer
3. Needed new cabling, and a lot of surface rust removal/treatment.
4. Needed at least 100lbs of tongue weight Perfect for addition of a
generator to the frame.
5. Toiwer per se, was in extremely good condition, high quality roller
bearings on each section
6. Needed limit switches to winch lift
7. Weak, short "outriggers" in my opinion, insufficient for safe support of
the tower.
The tower trailer may still be available for negotiated purchase from
Junkyard/storage yard area in the vicinity of Moss Landing California.
Contact Marina Beach Towing, in Marina CA 93933
73, DX, de Pat AA6EG aa6eg@hotmail.com;
Skype: Sparky599
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